Relative ductility: useful in applications such as microfabricated devices for biomaterial diffraction studies that require a thin side to reduce x-ray attenuation.

Surface can be modified via plasma nitridization or carburization'expanding the materials envelope.

APPLICATIONS

Biosensors

Drug Delivery (microneedles)

Medical Devices (implanted or external)

Surgical Tools

Advantages

Ti wafers are10 to 100 times less expensive in volume production than single-crystal Si wafers.

Apply manufacturing equipment already in place (for Si machining) to metal substrates such as bulk Ti.

Because Ti micromachining begins with standard machine-shop tools and processes, wafers can have milled and drilled features that would be expensive or impossible to produce using conventional semi-conductor microprocessing tools and techniques.

UC Santa Barbara has developed a suite of patent applications related to the diverse applications of Titanium MEMS, including:

UC Case No. 2003-360: 'Titanium MEMS in Harsh Environments.' Foundational patent, covering MEMs devices of titanium and other suitable metals, as well as the method of fabricating those devices. The process described uses the existing silicon infrastructure and allows design considerations currently in use for the SCREAM process to be applied to the metal MEMs process. Process applications include, among other things, the fabrication of devices for portable communications, radars, surgical tools, medical implants and surgical tools, accelerometers and actuators, optics, arrays, liquid crystal displays, and micromirrors. US Patent Number: 7,166,488, plus continuation application pending.

UC Case No. 2005-531: 'Nanostructured Titania.' Focuses on a method of forming patterned, crack-free nanostructured titania (NST) for applications such as chemical sensing, wear-resistant electrical contacts, and photovoltaics. The resulting Ti films have high edge acuity and range, with sizes from about 300 micrometers or less and are biocompatible. The process can also fabricate NST elements with pores of various selectable diameters. Claims also cover the resulting patterned, crack-free NST material. U.S. Patent Application 11/397,165.

UC Case No. 2005-704: 'Three-Dimensional Metal Microfabrication Process and Devices Produced Thereby' Focuses on a method for three-dimensional microfabrication of complex, high aspect ratio structures with arbitrary height profiles in bulk silicon or titanium. The application also covers devices resulting from this process, such as Titanium micromirrors. U.S. Patent Application 11/445,067.

UC Case No. 2006-175: 'Dimensional Microfabrication Process and Devices Produced Thereby.' An improved monocyclic deep etching process for the rapid micromachining of titanium substrates having a wide variety of thicknesses to produce high aspect ration features and acceptably smooth surfaces on titanium microdevices. U.S. Patent Application 11/537,743.